


Only You Can Take This Empty Shell

by creatureofhobbit



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A newly resurrected Kol struggles to deal with being returned to his old vampire body; Davina doesn't know how to react to the old, but new to her, Kol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only You Can Take This Empty Shell

It had been strange at first to look at himself in the mirror and see once more the same face that had been his own for a thousand years. Kol had become quite used to the face he’d worn as Kaleb. And he’d got used to being a witch again, the witch he’d spent the last thousand years trying to find a way to go back to being. But now he was back in his original body, Kol found himself a vampire again, deprived of the witch powers he had been so thankful to have had returned to him, dependent on human blood once more for his existence.

He knew that he should be grateful to Davina. She had, after all, been the one who had restored him to life when his family had chosen to take the opportunity to resurrect Esther instead. She’d done some kind of damage to her powers in order to do so, and Kol knew that he was lucky that she had survived at all – Bonnie Bennett had died after resurrecting Jeremy, after all. 

Yet every time he looked at her now, a part of Kol found himself resenting her for the fact that she retained the witch powers that were now lost to him, much as they had been weakened by the spell she had cast to resurrect him, and she was the one who had brought him back as a vampire. In one way, he felt unable to blame her. Davina hadn’t known that this was going to happen when she brought Kol back; she had fully expected to be bringing back the same Kol she had known before, the Kol with Kaleb’s face, the Kol with the witch powers...the Kol whose humanity was a given and she never needed to fear his losing it. And sometimes, when Kol looked at Davina and she didn’t realise he was looking, he’d catch an expression on her face and he’d know that Davina didn’t know what to make of the “old”, but new to her, Kol.

He knew that Davina didn’t completely hate vampires; she had managed to maintain strong relationships with Marcel and Josh, after all, yet he also knew there was a difference between maintaining a friendship with one and being in a relationship with one, especially a Mikaelson vampire considering the strong feelings of loathing she still held for his family. Once he had tried to discuss this with Davina, to show her that he understood her concerns, however she had replied that she was no longer finding it so easy to maintain the friendships. It turned out that Kol had picked the wrong moment to raise this topic; Josh had gone to her and asked her if there was any way she could resurrect Aiden in the same way she had resurrected Kol, and Davina had had to explain that the spell had done sufficient damage to her powers that she felt unable to attempt it again. Josh had not taken this well, and one day when he’d seen Kol and Davina together, he had gone for Davina in the street, demanding to know why she had resurrected Kol and not Aiden and whether their friendship still meant anything to her. Kol had stepped in to break it up, sending Josh sprawling to the floor with a well-timed blow. But when he’d turned back towards Davina, he’d seen a fear in her eyes that he had never seen before.

He’d gone after Josh after that to apologise, and to try and explain. “I miss him, Kol,” Josh had said, having calmed down a little by that time. “And for a moment there I’d thought there might be a chance of getting him back.”

“But if you had got him back, Josh, he might not have been the same Aiden.” Kol had explained. “Because I’m not so sure that I’m still the same Kol.”

As a witch once more, Kol had felt alive in the way that he had never felt as an immortal. He remembered the thousands of years he had spent trying to find any witch who would be able to restore his previous powers to him, his attempts to recreate the adrenaline rush he had always felt when his magic had gone well, his frustrations at every failed attempt leading to his massacres of the witches. But it was worse this time, even without the heightened intensity that his vampirism had restored to him, because for those few weeks, he had had what he wanted. At one time, he would have vented his frustration in the same way he always had, yet having seen Davina’s reaction to his altercation with Josh, Kol knew he could not allow himself to go into what Niklaus referred to as ripper mode. Yet he did not know what outlet was still open to him to release his feelings. He’d been a witch again, been the Kol he had always wanted to return to being, and now that had been taken away from him. 

Kol knew that the person he should really blame for that was, of course, his brother Finn, since it had been his hex that had created this situation in the first place. Niklaus’s Always and Forever mantra had clearly never applied to Finn. Much as Kol had always thought his older brother was a boring bastard, blindly loyal to their mother, and yet also resented him for the fact that Finn felt able to freely speak his mind about his hatred of their vampirism where Kol could not, Finn was still his brother. The first time he’d seen Damon Salvatore again after Finn’s death, he’d gone after him with a baseball bat purely for being involved in that, and that was nothing compared to what he would have done to Donovan had he been there at the time. What else was he going to do? Finn was his brother. And then when it had come down to it, Finn had shown no such loyalty to Kol, choosing to kill him without a care.

He’d seen the bastard walking the streets of New Orleans with Cami once not long after he’d come back, and Rebekah and Davina had had to intervene before Kol could attack him, explaining that the man he saw before him was not Finn, but the real Vincent Griffith restored to his body, innocent of any crime against Kol or anyone else. Vincent had taken one look at the expression on Kol’s face and immediately fled the scene, obviously figuring out who Kol must be. Rebekah had shaken her head in shock afterwards when Kol had allowed Vincent to go free, saying “You really must have changed. The old Kol would have torn his head off and then finished off with Cami for dessert.”

“I’m not so sure I’m still the old Kol any more,” Kol had replied. Rebekah had made some joke about how love had obviously changed him, winking at Davina, who ignored her, having still not forgiven Rebekah or the other Mikaelsons for not resurrecting Kol when they had had the chance. But it was obvious to Kol that she hadn’t believed him, since none of the family would tell him the location of the necklace where Freya had trapped the soul of their brother, knowing full well of his intention of finding some way to destroy it. Not that that was going to beat Kol; he knew that one day, he would find a way.

And as for Freya, what the hell was that? Not only had their older sister not died of the plague as a child as Kol had always been led to believe, but she had actually been his date during that Christmas party when Niklaus had daggered him, pretending to be someone else purely to find out more about their family? Rebekah and Elijah might have felt able to trust Freya, but Kol was convinced there was something more to her than met the eye.

“Niklaus shared your sentiments at first,” Elijah had explained when Kol first broached the subject with him.

“And yet he is willing to trust her around Hope now?” Kol had asked. “She was willing to try and turn you all against him, and she was willing to kill him to end Dahlia? And Niklaus trusts her?”

“But she didn’t go through with it,” Elijah pointed out. “When it came down to it, she chose Niklaus. She chose all of us. When you have had more time to spend with our sister, you will understand.”

Understand? He understood that she had had the opportunity to tell the whole family who she was at that party and yet had pretended to be someone else, allowed him to think of her as a possible date. How could he trust her after that?

“But you were prepared to use her as a means of creating a dagger for Niklaus,” Elijah pointed out when Kol said this. “Are you really so different?”

Kol had shut up at that. He had to admit the truth of this; and he also had to admit that his judgement may have been coloured by the anger he still felt towards his family at the fact that despite their vow to find some way of bringing him back, they had failed to do so when given the opportunity. While he understood the need for Niklaus to destroy Dahlia and save Hope, a part of him still wished that his family had chosen to resurrect him. Yet he had spent a thousand years feeling like the outcast among his family only to finally feel accepted at the end, and he was determined not to spend another thousand years feeling that way.

He was not the same Kol who had lived for the thousand years as an outcast; he was also not the same Kol who had lived those precious few weeks as a witch, secure in his relationship with Davina, finally rebuilding his bonds with his siblings. He had to figure out now who this version of Kol Mikaelson really was.

“I’m not so sure Davina will stick with me while I work that out,” Kol admitted.

“You don’t know that,” Rebekah said. “But you know you always have us.”

“Always and forever,” Niklaus chimed in, and Kol knew he had to let go of his feelings of resentment towards his family, because if he was ever to deal with having been brought back, he needed them by his side.


End file.
